"The Woman Dress"
by Giada Colagrande
Women’s Tales #3

The film stars Italian actress Maya Sansa and is set to a haunting soundtrack, written
especially for the film by electronic pop trio Au Revoir Simone.

Following The Powder Room – Zoe Cassavetes’ dreamy story of opulence and glamour,
and MUTA – Lucrecia Martel’s film noir filled with mutant fashion divas – The Woman Dress
is again set in an all-female world of glamour and desire. But this time fashion
obsession is taken to its most extreme conclusion, in a metaphysical tale of
transcendence and ritual.

A coven of elegant witches attends a bubbling cauldron, their shadowy cavern hung with
the ghosts of dresses. Maya Sansa is undressed and led to a bath, and her finger
pricked to draw blood. The witches – played by Heather D’Angelo, Erika Forster and
Annie Hart of Au Revoir Simone – circle, chanting in strange tongues. As the smoke
clears we see Maya Sansa has made the ultimate sacrifice, transforming herself into the
object of her desire – a beautiful blood red dress.

The film, featuring key dresses from Miu Miu, draws on a surreal cinematic language,
with its red velvet curtain, reverse-speak and dreamlike mise-en-scène.